Look not only to your own interests

by Sarah Luna

This week’s seminar featured a discussion on the nutrition policy process. What follows is my summary of their main points.

Much like last week, the speakers focused on the role of science in changing policy–seeking first to understand how nutrition policy is formed. The first speaker explained that even though policy makers may not seem to act in a rational way to us as scientists, they have their own rules and act in their own rationality. For example, there are legal, scientific, economic, social/ethical, political, and administrative rationalities. Each of these types can be used as a lens with which to view a specific decision. The scientific lens viewing a particular issue yields a very different picture than a political or economic lens. Yet they are all rational. (Drew, thoughts?) [Update: I’m in for it now. Drew’s got his skeptic hat on and I’m going to have to reexplain everything. Stick around!]

Politicians can be utilitarian and focus on the outcome or they can be ontological and focus on the process. They look to scientists to provide research with short term answers. They then use this scientific “evidence” to create policies that increase their own legitimacy.

As scientists, we need to create a demand for evidence and play off of the policy-makers’ need for legitimacy to advance our own research. The most relevant research will go unnoticed if there is no demand for it. Timing is crucial. (This reminded me of chaos theory. I should bring that up in my next Theories class).

Therefore, we must package our material to create maximum effect. This could mean writing intelligible briefs for policy makers or writing opinion pieces for Project Syndicate. We need to make our research accessible to the lay reader so that they become our willing advocates. (As evidence providers, we cannot be our own advocates but must remain unbiased.)

As a researcher, it is no longer enough for me to deal simply with the scientific questions. I must include the decision makers in the research process in order to create ownership. And I must examine the stakeholders involved and accurately interpret their positions.

6 Comments to “Look not only to your own interests”

I suppose that it is too idealistic to hope that science could have its own version of “Ars gratia Artis,” and divorce itself from those societal institutions you mention that would co-opt and exploit it. Of course not, for who would fund the research with no quid pro quo?

First, you say “As scientists, we need to create a demand for evidence and play off of the policy-makers’ need for legitimacy to advance our own research. The most relevant research will go unnoticed if there is no demand for it.” Much science is funded by governments, but it can be a corrupting relationship. Don’t get the “right” answer at the time (which can change as politicians come and go and as new research is conducted), and your funding may be cut off.

Second, be careful of scientists prescribing policy solutions. Once scientists go from presenting their evidence and data and conclusions to arguing for certain policies or actions, the public views them with much less trust, and as just another advocacy group. Scientists need to get the information out, but what to do with it, if anything, involves many more considerations — most of them not scientific — as you have noted. Do we ban toys in Happy Meals that don’t meet certain nutritional requirements, as San Francisco has done? Do we ban circumcisions in males under 18, as certain activists in San Francisco are proposing? Health data meets personal liberty meets parental rights meets religion. Very messy.

Third, you say “Therefore, we must package our material to create maximum effect. This could mean writing intelligible briefs for policy makers or writing opinion pieces for Project Syndicate.” I am much in favor of writing intelligible and intelligent briefs and papers. But I am concerned that some may equate “maximum effect” with “the sky is falling.” From acid rain to the ozone layer to obesity to deforestation of the Amazon to global warming, the public is getting the crises de jour (I fault the media as much as the scientists, although they often seem to be working in league with each other for their own purposes), and when we get a new one every year (or month), we tend to start ignoring them all. Sometimes you have to scream to get noticed, but there often seems to be too much screaming by too many people. In a world of 6 billion, most any issue will impact millions or hundreds of millions. But not all problems are equal. Pollution of various kinds can have large impacts, but if you want to save the most lives in the world today, providing clean drinking water and fighting malaria will have the biggest impact, particularly for children.

Communicating sound science to non-scientists is something that is really important to me. These are two of my biggest concerns:

1) Non-scientists don’t have the background to follow all the scientific details, but as scientists we have to ensure that, even with more general presentations of our work, the scientific integrity of the communication is preserved. Without the details, the truth can get hazy or we can trend toward generalizations. As scientists, however, we know that most things follow a spectrum not an either/or system. Spectra are more nuanced and more difficult to respond to with policy because the first policy response is to outlaw the bad thing or promote the good thing; more complicated policies are more expensive and time-consuming to develop and implement. Also, the reality of statistical confidence in scientific results can be difficult for non-scientists to handle; for policymakers, it’s annoying to not be able to be 100% confident and give the constituents immediate results.

2) I agree with the above concern about scientists promoting specific policy responses. Speaking for particular policies can detract from our scientific authority and muddle the scientific data. Because policies must consider several kinds of reasoning – scientific, economic, social, moral, and ultimately political – which usually don’t have the same priorities, we as scientists must protect scientific integrity. A final nuance: we are human beings; all of the other types of reasoning must inform our integrity as scientists. That’s why we have ethics in science.